Climate Change

In camera The CBC’s Tom Ayers doesn’t seem to like closed doors any more than I do and this week he kicked one open (figuratively, not literally) at the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Ayers reported on Thursday that the CBRM Council has discussed its own compensation in secret four timesRead More

OK, Stop Councilor! After reading Thursday morning’s Cape Breton Post, I have an overwhelming urge to speak directly to District 4 Councilor Steve Gillespie (In fact, I was speaking to him but I don’t think he heard me). I don’t think he’ll read this either, but for the sake ofRead More

Cecil Clarke is not the only anti-carbon tax politician in the current landscape; in fact, he’s arguably just the homegrown version of a familiar figure on the political scene — the “Canadian conservative” who, as Dalhousie economist Lars Osberg puts it, has “successfully framed” the federal government’s carbon-pricing system as aRead More

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?,” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. AsRead More

Revelations The experience of covering John Whalley’s civil suit against the CBRM has been revelatory: it’s clarified for me my preferred style of journalism (slow) and the contribution I can make to coverage of a local news story (details, context, history). It’s been an incredible amount of work and yetRead More

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Where’s Cecil?,” my ongoing effort to keep track of Mayor Cecil Clarke’s campaign appearances to judge just how much time he’s taking from his day job to travel the province in pursuit of the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. AsRead More

Makerspace update Remember I told you we were getting a Makerspace? It’s part of something called the Momentum Initiative — a cooperative effort between Innovacorp and a number of other organizations and entities, including New Dawn, Cape Breton Partnership, CBU, Navigate Start-Up House, NSCC, the National Research Council of CanadaRead More

Tri-Council Meeting Let’s see if I have this straight: once a year, the elected councils of the CBRM, Eskasoni and Membertou meet…in private? These “tri-council meetings” have been going on for a number of years now, and I have never seen a pre-meeting announcement or agenda, just post-meeting reports likeRead More

A recent conversation with a relative set me to researching chickens and ticks and what a long, strange trip it’s been. The conversation was about the efficacy of chickens in controlling tick populations. It struck a chord with me because I’ve been thinking of the advantages of backyard chickens latelyRead More